


ride toward the sun

by dustofwarfare



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Game, afterlife!fic, closure because this game gives you none, it's post-canon so, the major character death tag is kind of obvious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: From a tower in a city long lost to memory, Ardyn Lucis Caelum greets the dawn.He is not alone.





	ride toward the sun

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched a stream where someone played Royal Edition and fought the Mystic King. It made me yearn for Somnus and Ardyn having a moment after everything.
> 
> I MEAN I YEARN FOR ANYONE HAVING A MOMENT OF CLOSURE, GAME. >:( 
> 
> Title from Murder By Death's "Good Morning, Magpie" which is my favorite song and I will use it for 23423423 fic titles :|

“Well,” Ardyn says, blinking. “This a bit unexpected.”

He’s supposed to be dead. He _is_ dead. Isn’t he? Nothing hurts, but nothing has, for a long time.

The last thing he remembers is standing in the space between the worlds, the Scourge tearing through him along with the magic of the true King of Light.

Had that hurt? He can’t seem to recall. 

He shouldn’t be recalling _anything_. He’s supposed to be _dead._ Oblivion should be far less corporeal and far less  _sentient_ than he is at present. 

He’s standing on the roof of the Citadel in Insomnia. Beneath him the city lies heavily under the dark. 

Is there something left he has not done? Some price left yet unpaid for his atonement?

But no. The sky is changing. Even as he stands there watching, he can see the shifting colors, the texture that was not there before. 

There are two figures standing near the edge of the roof, shrouded by light. They turn as he approaches, and he recognizes Lady Lunafreya -- resplendent in a gown of white -- and Noctis, clean-shaven and attired in the raiment of a king. 

Ardyn bows politely. “Your Majesty. Lady Lunafreya. Do forgive my intrusion. I must have taken the wrong exit from the lift. Oblivion must be up another floor or two.”

Lady Lunafreya smiles at him. “As you are released from the thrall of the darkness, so too is the world. The dawn is coming."

Yes. But why is he still here to see it? No matter. It is pleasant to feel like himself again, if only for a little while. 

Ardyn can feel Noctis looking at him. He should say something, he thinks. He’s always been very good at speeches, hasn’t he? He’d had ten years to come up with the one he’d delivered with his boot on Noctis’s throne. Longer than that. Millennia.

For this, though, he has nothing save, “Your Majesty.”

“Ardyn Lucis Caelum.” Noctis smiles. There is no malice, no hate, in his expression. Just a quiet kindness, the settled air of a man who has fulfilled his duty. “It is an honor to meet you at last.”  He gives Ardyn the sort of bow one king gives to another, though Ardyn is not, and never has been, anything of the kind.

What a flatterer. They are definitely related. 

“There is one who wishes to watch the light return by your side,” Lunafreya says. “If you are amenable. If not, you are welcome to spend these last moments with Noctis and I.”

Ardyn looks around, but the three of them stand alone on the sweeping tower. “And where might this person be?”

“He is here, but he is not,” Lunafreya says. She bows. “If it is your wish, I will see to it that you are by his side.”

Ah, why not? How delightful that someone wishes to see him. He’s certainly not made very many friends over the years, has he? “I should be delighted. Thank you.” He turns to Noctis. “I know not what waits for me after the dawn rises, but I suspect we will not see each other again. May you find in the Beyond that which your duty denied you in life."

“And you,” Noctis says, with a small smile. "Rest well, Ardyn."

The world shivers around him, and Lunafreya and the King are gone. It takes him a moment to place where he is. Still atop the Citadel, still with Insomnia spread out before him. But he stands atop a tower no longer standing, in an Insomnia long since lost to memory. 

There is the man standing near the edge of the parapet. 

At first Ardyn thinks it must be Noctis – the man is of a similar height, with dark hair worn too long and blowing slightly in the breeze. But he is dressed in a simple tunic instead of kingly raiment, and when he turns, Ardyn sees it is not Noctis at all.

Oh, there is an echo of Noctis’s features in the man’s face…but that’s not true, is it? It is _Noctis_ whose features are echoes of another.  A man Ardyn has not seen in quite some time -- save a few moments at the end in the Crystal, when his face was hidden by his armor. 

“Somnus. It has been a long time,” Ardyn says, in the language they once spoke. 

His brother regards him from eyes that are a twin of Ardyn’s own, bright as amber. “Indeed it has been, Ardyn,” he says, in the same language. He doesn’t smile, but Somnus always _was_ damnably serious at the best of times.

Ardyn doesn’t know what to say. The old anger has been washed clean and in its place is a remembered affection, dusty and unused but _there._

“I was not certain if you would wish to see me,” Somnus says. “Given all that has transpired between us.”

Ardyn almost laughs. “Given all that has transpired, why _wouldn’t_ I wish to see you? Besides. Wherever we are, this place...it would seem there is little room for regret or bitterness, for I feel neither." 

“That has little to do with where we are, Ardyn,” his brother says. “And more to do with the soul that was yours before the darkness took it. The embodiment of compassion without judgment, isn’t that what you always said a healer must be?”  

Had he? It seems like so long ago. But it seems like something he would have said, before the dark thing burrowed deep into his veins and rotted him from the inside out. “I have not been that man for some time, Somnus. My crimes far outweigh the good I might have done, and you must know that.” 

“You have played your part as the gods decreed you must,” Somnus says. “My heart bears a burden for the actions I took against you. I have long waited for this day, that I might ask your forgiveness. Though I feel I do not deserve it. You may have brought darkness to the world, but it was I who cast you aside and set you on the path you took.” Somnus’s jaw is set, rigid. He looks like some tragic figure of old, which, Ardyn thinks in amusement, is exactly what he  _is._ What they both are. 

 _I best get some decent epic poetry out of this,_ Ardyn thinks, the only thought he's spared for the future of the world he left behind.  _Though I daresay no one writes those anymore, do they? A television miniseries, then. A concept album or two._ Surely that isn't too much to ask? History loves a complicated villain. If that is his legacy, well, then. So be it. 

“Ah, Somnus. I always said they should have named you _Gravis_. If it is true that I but played the part I was given, then so, too, did you.” Ardyn places a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “If you wish my forgiveness, you have it. But can you forgive _me_ , for what I have done? For I cannot deny that bitterness and spite ruled my actions as much as the curse that was laid upon me.”

“That was the true horror of the Scourge,” Somnus says. “It tainted all that it touched. Your healer’s gifts, and the love you bore your family and your fellow man. It is good to see you stand beside me once more."

“And it is good to stand beside you.” Ardyn squeezes his shoulder. Once it might have mattered that he should have been king in his brother’s stead. Once he would have felt this city was  _his_. But all of that is gone, now, washed clean by the light and the simple, undeniable truth that he has had quite _enough_ of kings. “I thought perhaps my last memory of you would be in the Crystal, when you threw that sword at me. Rather good aim, though. Better than you ever were at darts, that's for certain.”

Somnus has the grace to wince. “Yes. Well. That was a bit theatrical.” He slides Ardyn a look, an old, familiar expression of fond exasperation softening his features. He really _does_ look like Noctis. “Do not lie and pretend you didn’t appreciate it. Three millennia and the Scourge hasn't purged your love of ceremony.”

Ardyn laughs, because he's right about that. “Indeed. My ending deserved an appropriate amount of fanfare, and I suppose it was satisfactory.” He drops his hand and turns back to the view from the tower. Slivers of pale light are beginning to break through the heavy glut of clouds on the horizon. “It won’t be long, now.”

“No,” Somnus says, but his gaze is still on Ardyn. “It won’t. I thought you might wish to see the light return in the place where it left you, but if you would prefer somewhere else...?" 

“Illusions are illusions,” Ardyn says easily, for he knows that better than anyone. “But this one shall do as well as any other.” He’s pleased at this choice, and he’s sure Somnus can tell. Ardyn appreciates the gesture -- he does enjoy a bit of pageantry, but Somnus was never very good at it. 

Somnus reaches out and takes Ardyn’s hand in his as the sun begins to rise. There are people, Ardyn notices with a start, crowded into the streets below. The light is so bright it burns his eyes, but not like it used to, not when the Scourge writhed and snarled in his veins. It's the most human he's felt since the day he first laid hands on the afflicted.  

Ardyn is smiling. His face is wet with tears, real ones, not the kind edged in burning-black. Perhaps his brother is better at pageantry than Ardyn has given him credit for. 

The sun rises higher and higher, burning off the clouds and rising into a sky of perfect blue.

Somnus raises their joined hands, and below them, the people begin to cheer.

“Welcome home, brother,” Somnus says. “Welcome home.”

The light grows and grows, until there is nothing else. 

_It's finally over._

 

**Author's Note:**

> SOMETIMES I JUST WANT ARDYN TO HAVE NICE THINGS.


End file.
